Balfour’s Declaration – Myths vs. Facts (Introduction)

On November 2 1917, one hundred years ago, Lord Balfour, the British foreign Minister sent a letter to Baron Rothschild, where he expressed sympathy for the Zionist aspirations and informed him that Britain is in support of a Jewish homeland for the Jews in Palestine. He asked him to convey this message to the leadership of the Zionist movement.

The Zionist Myth is that the British promised them an independent state. This is nothing but a fabrication of history.

Thus, this letter was not an official declaration of the British Empire, but a letter to a rich Jew, nor was it a promise for a Jewish state but for some form of autonomy. Behind this letter was the interest of imperialist Britain to divert Jewish refugees, suffering from pogroms in Russia, from settling in the UK for the sake of guarding the Suez Canal in the service of global colonialism, as part of the “white man’s burden”, instead.

Additionally, Balfour, who was a known anti-Semite, believed that rich Jews controlled the world economy and can influence the Russian masses to continue the war against Germany. The Russian workers and peasants who brought down the Tzar wanted to break out of the slaughterhouse established by the capitalists for the sake of resolving some conflicting interests of the imperialist states. At that time Britain did not do well in the war and had suffered major defeat in Gallipoli.

At the same time Britain had promised to Hussein, the Sheriff of Mecca, that all the Arab populated countries will be part of his kingdom including Palestine.

In 1939, the British government published the White Paper in which it announced that since 450,000 Jews have already settled in Palestine, Lord Balfour’s promise was to be considered fulfilled and that in 10 years, Britain will grant independence to Palestine, where the great majority of the population was Arab.

It stated: “It has been urged that the expression “a national home for the Jewish people” offered a prospect that Palestine might in due course become a Jewish State or Commonwealth. His Majesty’s Government do not wish to contest the view, which was expressed by the Royal Commission, that the Zionist leaders at the time of the issue of the Balfour Declaration recognised that an ultimate Jewish State was not precluded by the terms of the Declaration. But, with the Royal Commission, His Majesty’s Government believe that the framers of the Mandate in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish State against the will of the Arab population of the country. That Palestine was not to be converted into a Jewish State might be held to be implied in the passage from the Command Paper of 1922 which reads as follows:

“Unauthorized statements have been made to the effect that the purpose in view is to create a wholly Jewish Palestine. Phrases have been used such as that `Palestine is to become as Jewish as England is English.’ His Majesty’s Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view. Nor have they at any time contemplated …. the disappearance or the subordination of the Arabic population, language or culture in Palestine. They would draw attention to the fact that the terms of the (Balfour) Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded IN PALESTINE.”

Needless to say, we as working class revolutionaries, do not regard British imperialism as a political entity that can make promises to be believed, rather than an enemy of the masses. However, it is important to know the facts. The following article deals with this issue in detail.

Defend the Syrian Revolution in Idlib and Al-Ghouta – not in Afrin!

Leaflet of the RKO LIBERATION (Austrian Section of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency) for a Rally of the Syrian Community during the U.N. Conference on Syria, 25.1.2018, www.thecommunist.net

Brothers and Sisters! The Syrian Revolution is in the utmost danger! Our revolution is threatened by annihilation and betrayal!

The Revolution is under threat because of the merciless advance, the horrific bombardments and the chlorine gas attacks of Assad’s army and his Russian and Iranian allies!

The Revolution is under threat because of the sell-out at the fake negotiations in Astana, Sochi and Geneva!

The Revolution is under threat because of the Turkish war against the Kurds in Afrin! We want the unity of all brothers and sisters – of the Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens!

The Revolution is under threat because of the withdrawal of Syrian fighters from the front in Idlib in order to fight under Turkish command against the Kurds! The Turkish war in Afrin helps Assad who wants to conquer Idlib!

The truth is: Erdoğan and Putin are working hand in hand! Erdoğan gets Afrin and Assad gets Idlib and al-Ghouta!

Brothers and Sisters, the Revolution can not be saved by subordination to the Great Powers Russia or the USA or the Turkish government! It can not be saved if liberation fighters become merchants of foreign powers!

* Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution!

* Down with Assad, Putin, Rouhani and Trump!

* All liberation fighters must join the struggle in Idlib, al-Ghouta, Daraa etc. – but not in Afrin!

* For a workers and peasants government!

* Against sectarianism – for joint resistance against Assad irrespective of religion and ethnicity!

* Russia, Iran, USA, EU, Turkey – Out of Syria!

* Solidarity with the liberation struggle of the oppressed masses in Egypt, Iran, Yemen, Tunisia and Sudan!

Long Live the Popular Uprising in Iran!

For Committees of Action of the Workers and Poor! For Organized Self-Defense against the Police Repression! Down with the Capitalist-Theocratic Regime! Unite the Struggle of the Iranian Masses with the Arab Revolution!

The capitalist-theocratic regime of Iran faces its most serious crisis since the “Green Revolution” in 2009. In the last four days mass protests have spread throughout the country. The uprising started on 28 December in Mashhad, one of the holiest places in Shi‘ite Islam. It soon spread to Kermanshah, Shari Kurd, Tehran, Hamadan, Isfahan, Yasuj, Karaj, Jajrud, Bajnurd, Rafsanjan and other provinces. In the central city of Isfahan, protesters joined a rally held by factory workers demanding back-pay. Demonstrators burned pictures of Khomeini and Khamenei, overturned police cars and set police motorcycles ablaze. According to reports, at least two demonstrators have been killed by the regime’s repression apparatus.

At the beginning, the protests focused on economic demands, in particular against the high cost of living, poverty, unemployment and graft. There has also been anger at welfare cuts and fuel price increases in the latest budget announced earlier this month. All this is hardly surprising given the fact that, according to the Statistical Centre of Iran, unemployment has risen to 12.4%, leaving about 3.2 million Iranians jobless. However, the protesters added very soon political demands which are directed against all factions of the regime and its foreign policy. Such slogans raised are: “Death to Rouhani”, “Death to the dictator” (i.e. Khamenei), “Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my soul is the redemption of Iran“, “Leave Syria and think about us”, “You have used religion and humiliated the people”, “The government is lying and its promises are not implemented” and “Unity Unity, No Fear, No fear of the police”.

It is clear that this is a spontaneous mass uprising against the reactionary Khamenei-Rouhani regime. There have been suggestions, e.g. by Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri, a close ally of President Hassan Rouhani, that these protests were initiated by supporters of the conservative Khamenei faction. However, even if this would have been the case, it is obvious that the protests have taken a spontaneous mass dynamic which is not controlled by any faction of the regime or anyone else. Quite the opposite, the uprising is directed against the regime as a whole with no support for any faction of it. While it seems that some reactionary pro-monarchist forces are intervening in the protests and try to influence them, it is clear that they currently play an insignificant role. It is furthermore an important and highly progressive sign that the demonstrators protest against the regime’s arch-reactionary foreign policy. Particularly in Syria, Iran plays, together with imperialist Russia, a crucial role in supporting the counterrevolutionary efforts of the Assad regime to smash the uprising of the Syrian workers and peasants which started in March 2011.

The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) strongly welcomes the uprising of the Iranian workers, poor and youth. We fully support their struggle against the reactionary policy of the regime both at home as well as abroad. The task of revolutionaries is to help the workers and oppressed in Iran to organize for the struggle, to give them a political perspective and to fight against any reactionary forces trying to infiltrate the protests. The RCIT considers this popular uprising as a crucial development which could quickly lead to a revolutionary situation, posing the question of power to the Iranian workers and oppressed. Furthermore it could play an important role to undermine Iran’s massive counter-revolutionary military intervention in Syria and, therefore, come to the relieve of the Syrian Revolution from the tremendous pressure it has faced recently. In general, a popular uprising in Iran, in parallel to the ongoing Syrian Revolution, the looming Third Intifada of the Palestinian people and the global movement in protest against Trump’s decision on Jerusalem’s status, and the heroic struggle of the Yemeni people against the Saudi invasion could revive the revolutionary wave in the Middle East which started in January 2011. Part of such a program is the call for lifting of all imperialist sanctions against Iran. It is the task of all socialists to work for such an internationalist perspective and to combine it with the program of permanent revolution which combines the democratic struggle with the socialist revolution.

Socialists in Iran must call for the formation of action committees in the workplaces, neighborhoods, schools and universities in order to organize the workers and oppressed. Such committees should organize the struggle and decide about the main demands, the forms of protests, the perspectives etc. They should also organize self-defense units in order to defend the demonstrations against the regime’s repression apparatus. Furthermore, socialists must explain that the solution is not national isolation but expanding the struggle for liberation internationally which includes support for the Syrian Revolution as well as the Palestinian struggle against the Zionist enemy. Finally, socialists should explain that the liberation struggle must be directed against all factions of the ruling class and against all imperialist powers. They should advocate, as we explained in the RCIT’s “Action Platform for Iran”, the perspective of a workers and poor peasants government based on popular councils and militias.

The verbal “support” of the Trump Administration for the protests in Iran is nothing but a cynical maneuver to exploit the domestic problems of a country which is in the camp of the US’s imperialist rivals Russia and China. Given the record of US imperialism of strangling Iran for decades with economic sanctions and threatening it with military attacks, it is highly unlikely that this “support” will impress anyone of the Iranian protesters. Clearly, every self-respecting Iranian will reject with deep disgust any affiliation with the Islamophobic, war-mongering dotard in the White House.

We can take for granted that numerous Stalinists and pseudo anti-imperialists will denounce the popular uprising in Iran as a “conspiracy of US imperialism”. Ignoring the fact that the US is not the only imperialist power in the world and that we are living in a world marked by an accelerating rivalry between several Great Powers (US, EU, Russia, China, Japan), they view any popular movement in the countries of the Russian/China camp, like Iran, automatically as a reactionary development. This demonstrates not only their complete failure of Marxist thinking, i.e. of understanding social movements by their material causes instead of adapting to foolish conspiracy theories in the tradition of the right-wing Breitbart agency of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Such an outrageous slander of a democratic popular uprising also proves more that these forces are “anti-imperialists” only in words but social-imperialist servants of Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi in deeds.

The struggle for liberation within Iran, as well as internationally, can only be won if we build a revolutionary socialist party nationally and internationally. Only such a party can give the necessary leadership for those struggles. Only such a party can transmit the socialist program to the masses. It is therefore the central task of all consistent revolutionary forces to focus on building such a party. The RCIT urges all revolutionaries in Iran to fight together for the founding of such a party.

* Support the popular uprising! For the release of all prisoners! Defend the democratic rights to assemble and demonstrate!

* For an automatic rise ofwagesin accordance with the rise inprices in order to combat inflation!

* For a public employment program under control of the workers!

* Down with the capitalist-theocratic regime! Against both the Khamenei as well as the Rouhani faction!

* For the formation of action committees in the workplaces, neighborhoods, schools and universities!

* For the creation of organized self-defense units!

* For a workers and poor peasants government!

* Down with the imperialist sanctions against Iran!

International Secretariat of the RCIT

For the RCIT’s analysis of Iran we refer readers our programmatic document:

Greetings for the New Year of 2018: Unite to Fight Back against the Reactionary Offensive of the Ruling Class!

A Letter from the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 30.12.2017, www.thecommunists.net

Dear Comrades, Brothers and Sisters!

The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) sends its New Year greetings to all revolutionaries fighting for the overthrow of the capitalist world order.

Likewise, we send our sincerest greetings to all all our brothers and sisters around the world who are fighting against exploitation by bosses, reactionary dictatorships, and imperialist wars and occupation!

Comrades, Brothers and Sisters! Behind us is a year full of murderous campaigns and outrageous reactionary attacks of ruling class against the working people. To give just a few examples:

* The reactionary killing machine of Assad, the theocratic regime in Iran, and imperialist Russia are continuing the slaugther of the Syrian people. All this is done with the support of the Western imperialist powers.

* Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital is an unprecedent provocation to the Palestinian people, the Arab and the Muslim world as well as all progressive forces.

* In Yemen, the Saudi-led coalition – with the support of the Western imperialists – are killing thousands of civilians. Their total embargo of the country has created famine as well as a cholera epidemic!

* The slavery of Africans in Libya – a result of the imperialist migration policy of the European Union – demonstrates once more the barbaric reality of modern capitalism.

* Likewise we witnessed the electoral fraud in Kenya, the military coup in Zimbabwe and the desperate clinge to power by the totally corrupt ANC government in South Africa.

* In Myanmar we had to witness the mass murder and ethnical cleansing of the Rohingya minority by the pro-imperialist regime.

* In Brazil and Argentina, the right-wing governments attack the long-standing labor rights as well as the social security system.

* In Honduras, the corrupt and authoritarian regime of Hernandez, with the support of the US Administration, imposed a curfew and mobilized the police in order to smash the militant protest movement.

* In Europe, the conservative Rajoy government in Spain – with the tacit suport of the imperialist EU – is openly suppressing the wish of the Catalan people to have their own state.

* In the US, the arch-reactionary Trump Administration is continuing the attacks on migrants, workers and enviromental standards and, at the same time, delivers huge tax breaks for the super-rich.

However, the workers and oppressed have demonstrated their determination to fight back. It is them to whom we send our greetings of solidarity and with whom we wish to work together in order to stop the imperialist beast!

In Palestine, the glorious workers and youth – who successfully defended Gaza against the Israeli hi-tech army in 2009, 2012 and 2014 – are about to launch the Third Intifada in response to Trump’s decision on Jerusalem. They are supported by a growing international solidarity movement around the world.

In Syria, the heroic resistance fighters – most importantly in Idlib and East Ghouta – are continuing their heroic struggle against Assad, ISIS, the Iranian mercenaries as well as the Russian invaders.

In Yemen, the brave popular resistance still holds out against the aggression of the al-Saud gangsters.

In Kenya, the masses are opposing the corrupt Kenyatta regime despite brutal repression.

In Somalia the US imperialist and their AMISOM mercenaries have still not succeeded in defeating the popular resistance.

In Brazil, the workers and poor peasant organizations have launched mass protests and general strikes against the attacks on their social rights. The same took place in Argentina.

In Honduras, the popular masses rebelled against the electoral fraud which even caused sectors of the police to refuse orders to repress the protests.

In Mexico, the indigenous and oppressed people are continuing to resist against the state repression and narco-trafficos with building their popular militias (“Policía Ciudadanas y Populares”)

In Catalonia, the people have defied the repression of the Spanish state and expressed their determination to have their own state in mass demonstrations, popular referenda and at the elections.

Given the historic crisis of leadership, all these struggles are led by non-Marxist forces. However, this is no reason for revolutionaries to stand at the sideline. Quite the opposite, they must join the masses at the barricades and support their struggles and, at the same time, defend their own, revolutiomnary program.

We expect a continuation and acceleration of the main lines of contradictions of the present historic period: the reactionary attacks of the capitalists against the workers and oppressed, the attacks of the imperialist monopolies and Great Powers against the oppressed people as well as the rivalry between the imperialist Great Powers (US, EU, Russia, China, Japan). (For an overview of the RCIT’s analysis of the important class struggles around the world, we refer readers to the numerous articles and statements published on our website as well as the RCIT‘s latest World Perspectives, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/world-perspectives-2017/)

We therefore expect in 2018 worse attacks against our class, more chauvinist aggression and more wars. But we are also convinced that these attack will provoke an even stronger fightback by the workers and oppressed. We orientate towards these struggle and seek to build a revolutionary party among the advanced layers of the fighters in these struggles.

It is urgent that under these conditions revolutionaries intensify their efforts to unite and advance in building a Revolutionary World Party. Such a World Party should be based on a joint program combining a revolutionary line on all major global political events with a transitional strategy aiming at an internatinal socialist revolution.

The RCIT has elaborated in its “Manifesto for Revolutionary Liberation” its contribution to the debate of revolutionaries about such a program. (See https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit-program-2016/) This Manifesto summarizes the RCIT’s analysis of the present world situation, the position of revolutionaries in the most important class struggles today, and the crucial lessons for the upcoming battles.

Building such a Revolutionary World Party is crucial given the terrible crisis of leadership which has caused numerous defeats and setbacks in the struggles of the working class and the oppressed. As we have emphasized many times, the tragedy of our times is not the lack of a class struggle, but the fact that the working class and the oppressed are entering these struggles without the appropriate leadership. Instead, the masses are forced to wage their heroic struggle under the leadership of reformists, petty-bourgeois or bourgeois populists, nationalists and Islamists. In short, the decisive problem today is the total lack of revolutionary leadership. Only if revolutionaries succeed with replacing these misguided leaderships with a Marxist leadership, only than will it be possible to overthrow global capitalism and liberate humanity.

We urge all comrades, brothers and sisters to study our documents and to contact the RCIT so that we can jointly discuss steps towards closer collaboration in our mutual effort to build the most important instrument of the working class in its struggle for liberation: a new World Party of Socialist Revolution! Let us march forward!

Workers and Oppressed, Unite!

Let Us March Together in Fighting against the Reactionary Offensive of the Ruling Class and the Imperialist Great Powers!

Forward in the creation of a new World Party of Socialist Revolution!Forward in building the RCIT!

After the Death of Saleh: Continue the Defense of Yemen against the Al-Saud Gang of Aggressors!

Joint Statement by the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and the RCIT Yemen, 12.10.2017,www.thecommunists.net

The death of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh opens a new chapter in the Yemeni struggle against the Saudi aggression. It is a dramatic turn which accelerates the contradictions of the war. As it is well known, the war started in March 2015 when a Saudi-led alliance, with the support of the military dictatorship in Egypt as well as the US and other Western imperialist powers, invaded the country. Its purpose is to restore the puppet government of Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and to liquidate the, albeit limited, democratic and social victories achieved since the popular uprising started in Yemen in the autumn of 2014.

In the last two and a half years, the Saudi monarchy has waged a barbaric war against the Yemeni people – with the tacit support of the Western imperialist powers. By imposing a reckless bombing campaign as well as a total land, air and sea blockade, the Saudi aggressors try to subjugate the Yemeni people. As a result, over 11,000 people, with the vast majority being innocent civilians, have been killed since March 2015. Meanwhile, untold millions have been displaced. Seven million Yemenis are facing famine and completely rely on food aid to survive. A fast spreading cholera epidemic is affecting at least 1 million people, including at least 600,000 children.

The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) reconfirms its position which we have taken since the first day of the war: We unreservedly condemn of the Al-Saud gang of aggressors’ war and we unconditionally support of the Yemeni resistance. We congratulate our comrades in Yemen for the participation in the defense of the country against the foreign aggressors. As we stated in our past declarations, such a support for the military struggle of the Yemeni resistance against the Saudi-led alliance doesn’t mean support of the political leadership of the Houthis. Quiet the opposite: we strongly reject the petty-bourgeois nationalist-Islamist agenda of the Houthi leadership. However, together with our comrades in the RCIT in Yemen we stress that is the duty of democrats, anti-imperialists, and socialists in Yemen and the Arab world as well as internationally to support the Yemeni people’s struggle for national independence.

Despite their military and technical superiority, the Al-Saud gang of aggressors has failed until now to defeat the Yemeni forces and to conquer the capital city Sana’a. This can only be explained by the popular support for the Houthis’ struggle and the lack of such support for the foreign invaders. In fact, the popular resistance against the Saudi invasion goes far beyond the Houthis and includes also other, including socialist, forces. Furthermore, the Saudi-led coalition is faced with inner contradictions with a significant part of their Yemeni supporters striving for the secession of the Southern part of the country from the north (as it was the case between the 1960s and 1990)

As Riyad could not win on the battlefield, it tried to defeat the resistance by bribing Saleh, a notorious reactionary figure and former Saudi ally who had fought the Houthis in six different confrontations between 2004 and 2011. However, in 2015 he had joined an alliance with the Houthis for opportunistic reasons. After one year of secret negotiations, Saleh stated on 2 December 2017, publicly that he was willing to engage in talks with Saudi Arabia, i.e. that he was ready to switch sides. The Houthis rightly condemned Saleh’s actions as “a coup against our alliance and partnership … and exposed the deception of those who claim to stand against aggression“. As a result armed clashes erupted in Sana’a. However, given the weak support for Saleh and his treacherous actions, the Houthis succeeded quickly in defeating this coup. On 4 December, Saleh was killed at a checkpoint outside Sanaa when he tried to flee. In short, once more a maneuver of the Saudi monarchy has failed.

Various left-wing organizations have refused in the past years to support the Yemeni resistance. They argue that this conflict would be a “proxy war” between Saudi Arabia and Iran resp. between the Western and the Eastern Great Powers. The RCIT has always condemned such a coward position which was equivalent to desertion from a legitimate national liberation struggle. Of course, it is true that Iran politically supports the Houthis and lend them some limited material aid. However, the struggle of the Houthis since 2004 and the popular mass uprising in autumn 2014 and spring 2015 have their origins and their impetus in the domestic class contradictions and not in any foreign interests. Likewise it is complete nonsense to assume that the struggle of the Houthis is controlled by Tehran. Given the geographical isolation of the Houthi-controlled areas in the north of Yemen and their total blockade by the Saudis from all sides, this is simply not possible even if Tehran would wish so. For the same reason there is no significant presence of Iranian (or Hezbollah) troops in the north of Yemen. Of course, the opposite is true when we look at the anti-Houthi camp which is dominated and controlled by foreign powers, beginning with Saudi Arabia. Let us finally remark that in an epoch marked by the rivalry between capitalist powers, it is only logical that such powers try to utilize a national or democratic liberation struggle to advance their interests. This has always been the case in the 19th and 20th century and is also the case in the new historic period which opened up in 2008 with China and Russia as emerging imperialist powers. This has, however, never led Marxists to refuse support for oppressed people fighting for their freedom!

It is urgent to link the Yemeni national liberation with other legitimate national, democratic and anti-imperialist struggles in the region. Most of all, the struggle must be linked to the current Al-Quds intifada in Palestine and the global wave of mass protests against Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Furthermore, the struggle should link up with the ongoing liberation struggle of the Syrian people against the barbaric Assad dictatorship and its Russian and Iranian masters. Other examples are the resistance of the Egypt people against the regime of General Sisi and the resistance of the people of Bahrain against the corrupt monarchy. Such a strategy requires that the liberation forces do not orientate to find allies among this or that capitalist government in the region but among the workers and oppressed fighting against the ruling classes. It requires international solidarity across sectarian and national lines.

Such an internationalist and anti-imperialist strategy must be combined with the goal a uprising of the workers and fallahin which should result in the formation of a Worker’s and Fallahin government. Such a government would rely not on the old and corrupt army but on the power of popular councils and armed militias. Such a government would break Yemen’s dependence on the imperialist monopolies, and would nationalize the key sectors of the economy under workers’ control.

However, such a strategy can not be implemented “spontaneously”. It requires the existence of a revolutionary party based on an action program which combines the tasks of the democratic and socialist revolution. Such a party has to be independent of capitalists, imperialist institutions, and bourgeois parties. It should be based on the working class and rally the oppressed peasantry and poor. It should fight against any sectarian divisions along religious lines.

The RCIT calls on revolutionaries in Yemen as well as the Arab world to join us in the struggle for an internationalist, anti-imperialist, and socialist program, and to build a common international organization.

Palestine: A New Intifada is a Real Possibility! Long Live the Palestinian Heroic Struggle!

Last Wednesday, US President Donald Trump announced that the US formally recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and it will begin the process of moving its embassy to the city, breaking with decades of US policy. This is a real provocation against the Arabs and the Muslims and may push the Palestinians to a new Intifada that may reignite the Arab revolution.

According to the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, at least 22 Palestinians were wounded on Thursday in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza during clashes with Israeli soldiers following U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement.

Seven Palestinians were wounded at demonstrations checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Four were wounded by live fire and two by rubber bullets. Eight were wounded by rubber bullets in Tul Karm, three in Bethlehem. Four Palestinians were wounded by rubber bullets in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat. Confrontations were also reported in Nablus and Jenin. In Gaza, east of Khan Younis, three Palestinian protesters were wounded by live fire, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

Demonstrations in Ramallah, Tul Karm, and Nablus were attended by many hundreds of demonstrators, some of whom burned pictures of U.S. President Donald Trump. Dozens of Palestinians also protested in the north and center of the Gaza Strip.

In the West Bank cities of Hebron and Al-Bireh, thousands of demonstrators rallied with chants of “Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Palestine“. Some Palestinians threw stones at soldiers. The Israeli military is sending army battalions. (1)

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said Trump “destroyed any possibility of peace” and was “pushing this region towards chaos [and] violence. He is destroying all moderates in the region and giving power to extremists,” Erekat told Al Jazeera. “This is the most dangerous decision that any US president has ever taken.” Erekat said Trump had “disqualified his country from any possible role in the peace process. How can he talk about peace when he dictates the future of Jerusalem before negotiations begin, in total violation of international law?”

Erekat said it is “meaningless” to have a Palestinian state without Jerusalem as its capital. The only option remaining for Palestinians, he said, “is to fight for equal rights between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, the area of historic Palestine“. (2)

Very nice words and of course the solution is one state with equal rights to Palestinians and Jews, but how can the Palestinians trust the PA leadership to lead such a struggle when since Oslo agreement it has collaborated with Israel against any popular uprising?

Meantime, instead of leading real mass protest, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas traveled to Amman to meet King Abdullah II of Jordan to coordinate positions on Trump’s Jerusalem decision.

Unlike Abbas, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called for a new uprising against Israel following the announcement. In reference to Jerusalem, he said Trump’s televised remarks on Wednesday were “a declaration of war” against “the diamond in the Palestinian crown,” and said those who believe that the Palestinian people will reconcile itself to Trump’s newly declared policy “are deluding themselves.”

A new uprising is indeed necessary! For it to win it is necessary to organize in every village in every neighborhood an action committee and self defense committees, but would Hamas be able to do it? It did not organize such committees in Gaza during the Israeli attacks.

To win such a struggle a real revolutionary working class leadership is needed!

See also: Jerusalem is the Capital of Palestine! Trump’s Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital “Will Open the Floodgates of Hell to the West”! Mobilize for a Popular Intifada – in Palestine, in the Arab and Muslim World, Globally! Joint Statement of the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and the Internationalist Socialist League (Israel / Occupied Palestine), 06.12.2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/jerusalem-is-the-capital-of-palestine/

RCIT: World Perspectives 2017: The Struggle against the Reactionary Offensive in the Era of Trumpism, Theses on the World Situation, the Perspectives for Class Struggle and the Tasks of Revolutionaries, 18 December 2016, Chapter IV. The Middle East and the State of the Arab Revolution, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/world-perspectives-2017/part-4/